July-August, 1969 - Milwaukee Road Archive

A two-barge tandem leaving Seattle for Port Townsend/Port the "Lummi Bay." Located at the stern of the barges are quar­
Angeles arrives at the mouth of the East Waterway towed by ters for the two-man crews-bunkhouse, office and kitchen.
Puget Sound Barge Service Sets Sixty-Year Navigation Record
The Milwaukee Road's rail-barge service
between Seattle-Tacoma and the Olympic
Peninsula rounded out 60 years of
operation on July 19, making it the oldest
established floating railroad on Puget
Sound. The anniversary was marked by
the Port of Seattle, as a beneficiary of its
traffic, with wishes for many years more
of safe voyaging.
Maritime history was made in the sum·
mer of 1909 when the Milwaukee, upon
completing its line to the North Pacific
Coast, offered water transportation as an
auxiliary to rail service. Seafaring men
supposedly familiar with Puget Sound
navigation had predicted that the operation
wouldn't work; that the barges
would sink in rough weather. The fact
that it proved feasible was due to the ingenuity
of the railroad's engineers who
designed the system and had faith in its
success.
The service was inaugurated with runs
between Seattle and Ballard, which, although
part of that city, was then pretty
IT''JCh un its own for transportation. The
barges brought in manufactured goods
and carried out shingles and ties from
local sawmills. Starting in 1913, the service
was extended to Port Townsend,
Bellingham and Port Angeles, with calls
at Raymond and Eagle Harbor as business
was offered.
The landing installations at Seattle,
Port Townsend and Bellingham were
12
unique for that time. Their construction,
with floating aprons, or "bridges," that
dropped on the end of a barge and rose
and fell with the tide, permitted switch
engines to discharge and pick up freight
cars directly at the landing stage. The
design provided for a tidal movement of
four feet in either direction.
The sea-going railroad of today includes
the facilities of the Bremerton
Freight Car Ferry, which the railroad
purchased in 1961. Operating out of Seattle
and Tacoma, it serves Port Townsend,
Port Angeles (via rail from Port
Townsend), Port Gamble, Shelton, the
Captain Roy Hough of the Foss tug
"Lummi Bay" checks on the towline of a
tandem barge-load.
Puget Sound Navy Yard at Bremerton,
and Vancouver in British Columbia.
The key figure in the operation is
Clifford C. Hughes, port master for the
railroad at Seattle and a Milwaukee employe
for 28 years. From his office next
to the Milwaukee Road slip at pier 27,
Hughes checks the freight cars as they
go aboard and come off the barges, inspects
lashings and other security details,
coordinates shipments for sailing, and
generally keeps operations going aroundthe-clock.
Up to 1913 the barges were hauled by
firms under contract, but in that year the
Clifford Hughes, port master at Seattle,
lists car numbers to line up a 15-car shipment.
The Milwaukee Road Magazine